Abstract: In order to study the influence of turbulence intensity on the dynamic characteristics and aerodynamic load, simulation tests and experiments are carried out for a horizontal axis wind turbine with three blades whose rated power is 3.3MW. Furthermore, the power spectrum analysis of incoming wind speed and dominant load is carried out. Simulation tests are taken under the condition of four turbulence intensities of 0.10, 0.12, 0.14 and 0.16, whose results show that with the increase of turbulence intensity, the vibration acceleration, load and equivalent fatigue load of wind turbine nacelle change regularly. In order to verify the rationality of the simulation results, the data acquisition and analysis of a type-test wind turbine for more than one year were carried out. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) From the simulation results, with the increase of turbulence intensity, the vibration acceleration of wind turbine nacelle increases. When the turbulence intensity increases by 0.02, the acceleration increases by 10%. Besides, there is also a strong correlation between the side-to-side vibration and turbulence intensity where there is a peak point near the rated wind speed. The reason is that there is a switching process from torque control to pitch control, and there is a certain impact. 2) From the simulation results, with the increase of turbulence intensity, the key load and fatigue load of important components of wind turbine increase. When the turbulence intensity increases by 0.02, the equivalent fatigue loads of blade root MY, hub MY, tower top and tower bottom MY increase by nearly 10%. From the result of power spectrum analysis, the turbulence intensity has obvious influence on wind turbine, especially on MY load of blade, hub and tower top. 3) From the test results, the turbulence intensity is strongly related to the vibration and fatigue equivalent load of the wind turbine nacelle, and vibration and load of the unit also change regularly under the four different turbulence intensities of 0.06, 0.08, 0.10 and 0.12, which is in good agreement with the simulation results. From the above analysis, it can be seen that for areas with high turbulence intensity, the design load of wind turbine should be modified with appropriate coefficient in order to ensure the safety of fatigue life of wind turbine. Therefore, the bearing capacity of wind turbine components in high turbulence area should be strengthened. This provides a basis for the micro sitting of wind turbines in wind farms, and has a certain guiding significance for the design of wind turbines.